A still from Dune, 2021

The Ecological Prescience of Dune

Frank Herbert’s novel isn't just about space messiahs, giant sandworms, and trippy space drugs. At its core, the sci-fi epic is about ecology.
a passenger on the London Underground, reading D H Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'

Would You Let Your Servant Read This Book?

How the ban on D. H. Lawrence's book Lady Chatterley's Lover was reversed.
A Young Student at His Desk: Melancholy by Pieter Codde, 1633

The Anatomy of Melancholy at 400: Still Good Advice

Scholars! Feeling blue? Read on.
E. O. Wilson, 2003

E. O. Wilson and Biodiversity

Everyone talks about biodiversity these days, but an entomologist just might be its fiercest advocate.
Flag of Mohawk Warriors Society

How the Media Framed the Oka Crisis as Terrorism

For over two months in 1990, Indigenous activists defended Kanien'kehá:ka lands against encroachment. They were portrayed negatively.
Clown balloon in an early Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: A History in Pictures

In 1927, the parade replaced live animals with helium balloons designed by puppeteer Tony Sarg.
Book cover: The cover of a copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Source: https://flickr.com/photos/cdrummbks/3756574568

The Power of Sibling Bonds in The Brothers Karamazov

In the year of Dostoevsky's bicentennial, a revisiting of familial relationships in one of his most popular works.
Cedric Robinson

Cedric Robinson and the Black Radical Tradition

Cedric Robinson proposed that the Black radical tradition was necessitated into existence by “racial capitalism.”
Illustration: Reconstruction drawing of public Latrine at Forum Hadriani, Germania Inferior, Netherlands

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/carolemage/9548853868

The Early History of Human Excreta

When humans stopped being nomadic, we could no longer walk away from our waste. We’ve been battling it ever since.
A daguerreotype of a postmortem baby, partially covered by a flowered shawl

The History of Postmortem Photography

Ever since the medium was invented, people have used photography to document loss.